


Interview with Ianto Harkness-Jones, 14th October 2029

by Galadriel1010



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-16
Updated: 2010-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel1010/pseuds/Galadriel1010
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interview conducted prior to Director Harkness-Jones rejoining Torchwood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interview with Ianto Harkness-Jones, 14th October 2029

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series of interviews with various characters, this one is set in a hypothetical future where Jack and Ianto have been retired for 20 years to raise a family, but now Jack is missing and Ianto has nowhere else to go but back to Torchwood.  
> Any requests for characters to answer the questions?

 

**Mandatory Questions**

  

  1. **What about you is heroic?**  
My coffee, and the fact that I married Jack. On a serious note, I'm a one-in-one-hundred survivor of Torchwood, I've fought aliens, cannibals, psychotic exes and brothers, restored the organisation that nearly destroyed the world and did destroy my life as I knew it... Wouldn't have retired if I'd still been useful, and even then I went on to do the family thing. I guess that's pretty heroic. And then there was the explosion and Jack going missing and all the shit in Edinburgh... am I heroic, or just a survivor?

  

  2. **W****hat about you is social? What do you like about people?**I make very good coffee, but can't cook, so I guess I make a bad hostess. Gods I'm domesticated. I used to be a proper alternative boy, bordering on goth, and got up to all sorts of weirdness. Now you're more likely to find me at a parents' association meeting – probably making the coffee.**  
**

  

  3. **Of what benefit could you be to the current group?**I could make the coffee... okay, enough with the coffee. I'm your backstage man – I keep everyone organised, know when everyone has to be where and get them there. I'm also a level head in a crisis, even when the world's gone to shit and I'm the only one standing, I'll still be functioning. Give me enough people and I will put the world back together.

  

  4. **Why would you choose to join the current group?**I thought I was done with Torchwood, seems I was wrong. Not like I have anywhere else to be. And if it helps me get Jack back or just not think about missing him, I'll take it.

  

  5. **Invent an adventure/plot that your character would actively undertake (as opposed to just tagging along)?**  
No more adventures for me, I'll just hold you up. I've had too many already.

  



**Personal Questions**

  

  1. **What is your real, birth name? What name do you use?  
**I was born Ianto Gethin Jones, and I am now known as Ianto Gethin Harkness-Jones, Head Archivist of the Torchwood Institute and Caretaker-Director.

  

  2. **Do you have a nickname? What is it, and where did you get it?**Owen Harper, the medical officer at Torchwood Cardiff when I joined, called me Teaboy. One of Jack's exes called me Eyecandy; the first team at Torchwood London after the restoration called me Bossman. My favourite nickname, though, was Bollocks, and I don't really remember where I got that one.

  

  3. **What do you look like? (Include height, weight, hair, eyes, skin, apparent age, and distinguishing features)**I'm 6'1”, weigh 16 stone (it used to be all muscle – not so much these days), blue eyes, greying hair. Distinguishing features would be the facial scarring from the explosion; I look about sixty because of it, but I'm really not. And I walk with a stick.

  

  4. **How do you dress most of the time?**It's been jeans and casual shirts for years, but I'll be back in three piece suits for work with some nice ties.

  

  5. **How do you "dress up?"**  
One of my really, really nice suits, or my tuxedo. I prefer the suits, because they're brighter.

  

  6. **How do you "dress down?"**  
Jeans and a long-sleeved T shirt, for properly dressing down.

  

  7. **What do you wear when you go to sleep?**  
Jogging bottoms and a T shirt, something warm usually.

  

  8. **Do you wear any jewelry?**  
My wedding and engagement rings

  

  9. **I****n your opinion, what is your best feature?**  
My coffee... No, scratch that, it's my loyalty.

  

  10. **What's your real birth date?**  
19th August, 1983

  

  11. **Where do you live? Describe it: Is it messy, neat, avant-garde, sparse, etc.?**  
I'm currently in the process of moving from the house in York, a big Victorian house with the accumulated clutter of twenty years of married life and... children, of varying numbers over the years, to a loft apartment on the Bay. That one will be small and tidy and very minimalist. I've had to keep the York house for somewhere to put all the stuff... as well as the sentimental value.

  

  12. **Do you own a car? Describe it.**  
I have Jack's E-type Jaguar, Lady, which I don't drive often, just enough to keep her running. And I drive an XJS, because it's comfortable and I can.

  

  13. **What is your most prized mundane possession? Why do you value it so much?**  
I have Jack's wedding ring, but that's not exactly mundane. Mundane object would be the clock that looks totally out of place in the new bedroom – I guess it's weird to put such importance on it, but it was the last thing he bought for me.

  

  14. **What one word best describes you?**  
Loyal

  



**Familial Questions**

 

  

  1. **What was your family like?**  
Normal, I guess.

  

  2. **Who was your father, and what was he like?**  
He was the man who was married to my mother, and got her pregnant. He introduced me to rugby, pushed me off a swing by accident and told me that he was a master tailor until I was eleven and expressed an interest in sewing, and which point he thought it was a gay thing to do and stopped me. Ah, if only he knew.

  

  3. **Who was your mother, and what was she like?  
**She was my mother... She was lovely, very cuddly and sweet. Accepted Jack like a long lost son and Mike and Roger even better.

  

  4. **What was your parents marriage like? Were they married? Did they remain married?**  
It was a normal marriage, as far as I can tell, and that's not comparing it to mine and Jack's. They argued every evening, but never because they meant it, I was never scared to be around them. I think they were happy right up until Dad died.

  

  5. **What were your siblings names? What were they like?**  
Rhiannon... ahh Rhiannon. She's been my rock the last few years, and isn't that a cliché? I don't think I'd have got through losing Jack without her; sometimes I resent her for getting me through. She's a fighter though, strong enough to fight for anyone who needs her, as well as herself.

  

  6. **What's the worst thing one of your siblings ever did to you? What's the worst thing you've done to one of your siblings?**  
There's a lot that could be the worst thing I've done to her in the last few years. I've been to a few dark places, and she's always been there. Sometimes I think that making me live through it was the worst thing she could possibly do, but... I don't know, it's probably still ratting me out to Dad that I was smoking when I was fourteen.

  

  7. **When's the last time you saw any member of your family? Where are they now?  
**I saw Rhainnon and Micah yesterday, actually.

  

  8. **Did you ever meet any other family members? Who were they? What did you think of them?**  
Oh Gods, don't even go there. The Jenkins clan was confused and clingy, and we saw each other loads, because they lived closer than Dad's family. Still saw the Joneses at least twice a year. And, of course, there's Mike and Roger and their families – don't forget the descending family members as well as the ascending ones... that came out wrong.

  



 

**Childhood Questions**

  

  1. **What is your first memory?**  
Sitting on the grass outside Nana Jones's house, watching my cousin Bethan blowing bubbles at Chris's christening.

  

  2. **What was your favourite toy?**  
A teddy bear called Jacob.

  

  3. **What was your favourite game?**  
Climbing trees.

  

  4. **Any non-family member adults stick out in your mind? Who were they, and how did you know them? Why do they stick out?**  
Our next door neighbour, Carol, who made us cakes and sweets, and babysat when Mum and Dad wanted to go out, and had three kids around our age who we played with every day. I married her youngest daughter, Kath, in a blanket fort, and Georgia from down the road was the vicar.

  

  5. **Who was your best friend when you were growing up?**  
It was Kath, she's so lovely. I regret that we lost touch, but I'm so glad I found her again. I just wish... Never mind

  

  6. **What is your fondest, childhood memory?**  
Marrying Kath in that blanket fort. The weather was lovely, we were all together and not fighting... it was great.

  

  7. **What is your worst childhood memory?**  
Where does childhood end? I guess it would be falling off the swing; I never really forgave Dad for that, certainly not before he died – I was too young.

  



 

Adolescent Questions

  

  1. **How old were you when you went on your first date?  
**Thirteen – Kath again, we went to a school disco together. (She's got a wife now, by the way. We had a laugh at that.)

  

  2. **It is common for one's view of authority to develop in their adolescent years. What is your view of authority, and what event most affected it?**  
I think that authority figures are usually right, because they have been briefed by experts or are experts themselves, and they should be listened to most of the time, but ignored if you are certain that you know better and can take the consequences. What shaped it? I became an authority figure and married another one.

  

  3. **What were you like in high school? What "clique" did you best fit in with?**  
I was an alternative kid. Heavy rock music, Metallica and the like. Fortunately, there was an alternative clique at the high school I went to, otherwise I would have ended up as a goth nerd... oh, wait...

  

  4. **What were your high school goals?**  
Not work at Debenhams.

  

  5. **Who was your idol when you were growing up? Who did you first fantasize about in your life?**  
Who did I fantasise about? Isn't that a bit risqué for this interview? Okay, I get it. I idolised Keith Moon, wanted to die young in a blazing ball of fire and drugs and music.

  

  6. **What is your favourite memory from adolescence?**  
Sneaking into my first gig and crowd surfing.

  

  7. **What is your worst memory from adolescence?**  
Dad dying, no question.

  



**Occupational Questions**

  

  1. **Do you have a job? What is it? Do you like it? If no job, where does your money come from?**  
I worry that you're asking me this... I am currently being recruited to Torchwood for the fourth time, as the head archivist of all the branches and the emergency director in the instance of the director of any branch being incapable of fulfilling their duties, either through injury or death. For twenty three years I was on a Torchwood pension, having retired due to injury in the course of my duties.
  

  2. **What is your boss or employer like? (Or publisher, or agent, or whatever.)**  
I still think of Jack when you ask that... But my current direct employer is King Charles, who's a nice guy and enjoys a chat when I visit to give him the monthly reports on Torchwood activities  
**  
**
  

  3. **What are your co-workers like? Do you get along with them? Any in particular? Which ones don't you get along with?**  
I'm still to meet most of them, but as they're hand-picked by their leaders, they're probably good people.  
**  
**
  

  4. **What is something you had to learn that you hated?**  
To cope with losing people and with killing people.  
**  
**
  

  5. **Do you tend to save or spend your money? Why?**  
I've had more money than I knew what to do with since I joined Torchwood, and never had to worry about a rainy day, so I buy what I like, really. Still don't spend it all, though.
  



**Likes &amp; Dislikes Questions**

 

  

  1. **What hobbies do you have?**  
I build miniatures, and decorate cakes. I never got into model railways themselves, but I made the model buildings for Jack, Mike and Roger, and then developed it after the explosion to improve my muscle control in my hands.

  

  2. **Who is your closest mundane friend? Describe them and how you relate to them.**  
Either Kath or my Sister.

  

  3. **Who is your worst mundane enemy? Describe them and why you don't get along.**  
I don't have 'mundane' enemies. I have one enemy, and if I ever see him again, I will kill him.

  

  4. **What bands do you like? Do you even pay attention?**  
I'm enjoying Northern Kings and Blue Gillespie at the moment.

  

  5. **What tape or CD hasn't left your player since your purchased it? Why?**  
Wow, we're back in the twentieth century. I have my whole music collection on shuffle. The CD in my car, though, is a Vaughan Williams CD – it's good for driving to.

  

  6. **What song is "your song?" Why?**  
I don't really have 'my song', although I really related to “We Don't Need Another Hero” when I heard the Northern Kings' cover of it.

  

  7. **What's been your favourite movie of all time?**  
Blazing Saddles. Possibly the funniest film ever.

  

  8. **Read any good books? What were they?**  
I'm a Pratchett addict – he's such a great loss to the world. So was Adams.

  

  9. **What do you watch on the Television?**  
The satirical shows, mostly. Science fiction is too wrong, the news is too many lies... Oh and porn.

  

  10. **When it comes to mundane politics, do you care? If so, which way do you tend to vote? If not, why don't you care?**  
I vote for gay rights, for the parties I know are the most progressive regarding aliens these days, for the best economic policies. I don't have a party allegiance, just my own political leanings.

  

  11. **What type of places do you hang out in with your mundane friends?**  
Pubs, although I can't drink any more. Pubs and coffee shops.

  

  12. **What type of places do you hang out in with your normal friends?  
**None of my friends is normal.

  

  13. **What annoys you more than anything else?  
**Being told to move on from Jack, and young men with their trousers halfway down their arses.

  

  14. **What would be the perfect gift for you?**  
Jack back

  

  15. **What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?**  
I'm so not going down that road, so, erm... The sunset over the Caribbean.

  

  16. **What time of day is your favourite?**  
The time when I'm asleep. Or painkiller time.

  

  17. **What kind of weather is your favourite?**  
Sunshine

  

  18. **What is your favourite food? What is your least favourite food?**  
Fish and chips, because it reminds me of Jack. Fish and chips, because it reminds me of Jack.

  

  19. **What is your favourite drink? (Coffee, Coke, Juice, Beer, Wine, etc.)**  
Coffee.

  

  20. **What's your favourite animal? Why?**  
Pteranodon. Because very few people have fed one

  

  21. **Do you have any pets? Do you want any pets? What kind?**  
We have had two cats and two dogs over the years. Still with the last cat, Cassie, who will be moving with me. Compared to Tybalt's sedate sense, she's a ball of madness, and I adore her as much as I miss Tyb, Stuka and Hurricane.

  

  22. **What do you find most relaxing? (Not as in stress relief, but as something that actually calms you down.)**  
The fun drugs and a lava lamp, or designing a really intricate cake decoration.

  

  23. **What habit that others have annoys you most?**  
Boys wearing their trousers halfway down their arses.

  

  24. **What kind of things embarrass you? Why?**  
Public displays of affection. Go on, hazard a guess

  

  25. **What don't you like about yourself?**  
I'm bitter, cynical, clinging on to desperate hope and permanently disfigured. Apart from that, I think I'm ace.

  

  26. **How would you like to look?**  
&lt;Bitter laugh&gt; Like I did on my wedding day? I'd settle for how I did before I walked into an explosion

  



 

**Sex &amp; Intimacy Questions**

  

  1. **Would you consider yourself straight, gay, bi, or something else? Why?  
**I'm bisexual.

  

  2. **Who was the first person you had sex with? When did it happen? What was it like? How well did it go?**  
You'll be surprised, it's not Kath. I never had sex with kath, actually. It was a girl called Terri, who hung out at the same club as I did, and took me home with her one night when I was sixteen.

  

  3. **Have you ever had a same-sex experience? Who with, what was it like, and how did it go?**  
Um, my husband? His name is Captain Jack Harkness-Jones, we met through work and had a no-strings relationship until he left to get tortured for a year, then came back and I put him back together. Somewhere along the line we fell completely in love, he proposed, I ran away, I proposed, we got married... Twenty years and three children down the line, he went missing in the Rift storm in Edinburgh. And I'm still waiting for him to come home.

  

  4. **What is your deepest, most well-hidden sexual fantasy? Would you ever try it?**  
I wanted to be double penetrated by two versions of Jack... it happened, and it lived up to expectations... until the fallout.

  

  5. **What was the wildest thing you've ever done, sexually? Who was it with and when did it happen?**  
I slept with my husband and a version of him from the past in a parallel universe. That is, he was from a parallel universe, and hadn't got to the point in his timeline that Jack had...

  

  6. **Is there any sexual activity that you enjoy and/or practice regularly that can be considered non-standard? (Bondage, Fantasy Play, etc.) **  
Why do you like it?I haven't had sex in three years. With Jack though... I used to enjoy rough sex and fisting, until my injury. It all got vanilla after that... Oh, wait, you counted bondage. Yeah, tied Jack to the bed now and again.

  

  7. **Is there any sexual activity that you will not, under any circumstances, do?**  
Erotic asphyxiation. My luck is stretched too thin. Anything risky, really.

  

  8. **Do you currently have a lover? What is their name, and what is your relationship like? What are they like? Why are you attracted to them?**  
I repeat, my husband is missing.

  

  9. **What is the perfect romantic date?**  
Wherever the person you love is.

  

  10. **Describe the perfect romantic partner for you.**  
I don't think I ever found them. Jack wasn't perfect, or conventionally romantic, really. But love doesn't require perfection.

  

  11. **Do you ever want to get married and have children? When do you see this happening?**  
It happened twenty-odd years ago, keep up.

  

  12. **What is more important - sex or intimacy? Why?**  
Intimacy, once you've had it. It's so hard to going back to life without it.

  

  13. **What was your most recent relationship like? Who was it with? (Does not need to be sexual, merely romantic.)**  
Jack

  

  14. **What's the worst thing you've done to someone you loved?**  
… Declined his proposal and moved to the far side of the country? Or did I love him by the time I betrayed him... second time, or even first time? Possibly.

  



 

** Drug &amp; Alcohol Questions **

  

  1. **How old were you when you first got drunk? What was the experience like?**  
Fifteen. Bad enough to put me off until I was legal.

  

  2. **Did anything good come out of it? Did anything bad come out of it?**  
I didn't drink again until I started at university just after I turned 18, which was good. Even then, I wasn't a heavy drinker, which saved me money.

  

  3. **Do you drink on any kind of regular basis?**  
I can't drink any more because of the medication I'm on.

  

  4. **What kind of alcohol do you prefer?**  
Jack got me onto fine Scotch Whiskeys.

  

  5. **Have you ever tried any other kind of "mood altering" substance? Which one(s)? What did you think of each?**  
No. It always seemed like a risk too far.

  

  6. **What do you think of drugs and alcohol? Are there any people should not do? Why or why not?**  
They scare me. Alcohol doesn't so much, but drugs do. I've seen too much shit because of them.

  



 

**Morality Questions**

  

  1. **What one act in your past are you most ashamed of? What one act in your past are you most proud of?**  
Betraying Jack to open the Rift and releasing Abaddon. I'm proud of surviving the explosion.

  

  2. **Have you ever been in an argument before? Over what, with who, and who won?**  
Oh Gods, who hasn't?

  

  3. **Have you ever been in a physical fight before? Over what, with who, and who won?**  
Yes, I shot Owen. I think I won.

  

  4. **What do you feel most strongly about?**  
Love.

  

  5. **What do you pretend to feel strongly about, just to impress people?**  
I'm tired of trying to impress people. It doesn't work anyway.

  

  6. **What trait do you find most admirable, and how often do you find it?**  
Deserved loyalty, and I see it in huge amounts at Torchwood.

  

  7. **Is there anything you think should not be incorporated into the media or art (sex, violence, greed, etc.,)? If so, what and why, and if not, why not?**  
Not really. The media represents the world we live in, and the shit is there too.

  

  8. **Do you have any feelings in general that you are disturbed by? What are they? Why do they disturb you?**  
Um, what? I think... I think the answer to that question is homophobia. I hate that some people think less of me because I love another man, that they think that our relationship is worth less because we're both male, that our children and grandchildren are damaged by us because of it.

  

  9. **What is your religious view of things? What religion, if any, do you call your own?**  
I'm vaguely pagan, if anything.

  

  10. **Do you think the future is hopeful? Why?**  
I really don't know. If Jack's out there somewhere, then I have something to hope for. If he isn't, then there's nothing left for me.

  

  11. **Is an ounce of prevention really worth a pound of cure? Which is more valuable? Why do you feel this way?**  
Prevention is more valuable than the cure, because you don't have to suffer through any of it.

  

  12. **What's the worst thing that can be done to another person? Why?**  
Betrayal

  

  13. **What's the worst thing you could actually do to someone you hated?**  
I could make their lives hell, and keep them alive through it.

  

  14. **Are you a better leader or follower? Why do you think that? If you think the whole leader-follower archetype is a crock of shit, say so, and explain why?**  
I'm naturally a follower, but can lead if I need to. So yeah, it's shit.

  

  15. **What is your responsibility to the world, if any? Why do you think that?**  
To survive, and keep the people who follow me alive too.

  

  16. **Do you think redemption is possible? If so, can anyone be redeemed, or are there only certain circumstances that can be? If not, why do you think nothing can redeem itself?**  
I was.

  

  17. **Is it okay for you to cry? When was the last time you cried?**  
Yes, it's okay for anyone to cry. I'm proud that we brought our kids up knowing that. I cried the day I agreed to move away from York and back to Cardiff.

  

  18. **What do you think is wrong with MOST people, overall?**  
They don't think.

  



 

**Miscellaneous Questions**

  

  1. **What is the thing that has frightened you most? Do you think there is anything out there that's scarier than that? What do you think that would be?**  
The Cybermen. They're cold and clinical and brutal.

  

  2. **Has anyone or anything you've ever cared about died? How did you feel about it? What happened?**  
I lost my dad and my mum, but Jack was the worst. I still feel dead inside, largely because I can't begin to mourn until I know whether he's gone or not. He can't die, he must be out there somewhere... but I don't know if I'll ever see him again.

  

  3. **What was the worst injury you've ever received? How did it happen?**  
We were on emergency duty, being on location in Edinburgh at the time that the rift opened, and I arrived at the scene of an opening just before the bomb that came through exploded. I suffered major burns to my face and upper torso and severe lower spinal damage.

  

  4. **How ticklish are you? Where are you ticklish?**  
I don't tell anyone that.

  

  5. **What is your current long term goal?**  
Be here when Jack gets back.

  

  6. **What is your current short term goal?**  
Get the archives back under control.

  

  7. **Do you have any bad habits? If so, what are they, and do you plan to get rid of them?**  
Irritability. I think it's here to stay.

  

  8. **If you were a mundane person, what would you do with your life? What occupation would you want, and how would you spend all your time?**  
I think I'd be a librarian, or work in a museum.

  

  9. **What time period do you wish you had lived in? Why? (Looking at this as an attempt to change history doesn't count.) What appeals to you about this era?**  
The late nineteen sixties. There was so much brilliant music and powerful political change. I think I could feel like I'd achieve something if I lived then.

  

  10. **How private of a person are you? Why?**  
I'm fairly open, but only the surface.

  

  11. **If you were to gain an obscenely large sum of money (via an inhertiance, a lawsuit, a lottery, or anything else) what would you do with it?**  
Carry on doing what I am doing, I guess. Money's never factored into it, not since I joined Torchwood.

  

  12. **What would you wish for if you found a genie?**  
Jack.

  

  13. **What do you do when you are bored?**  
Sleep.

  

  14. **What is the most frightening potential handicap or disfigurement you can conceive of? What makes it so frightening?**  
Being trapped in my body, mind still alive, but body dead. And not like Owen, just unable to move, or /live/. Trapped.

  




End file.
